A Lady And Her Magic (9 page)

Sophia darted in the direction Anne had gone, hoping the duke wouldn’t follow. But she could hear his footsteps pounding behind her. She’d never get time alone with the child if he didn’t allow it. But she had to admit that she enjoyed spending time with him. In fact, she more than enjoyed it; she relished it.

She’d never met a man who’d made her forget her mission. Who made her want to conform to his world. Who made her want to be more to him than a faerie who would heal them all and then disappear. She shook the thoughts away. They would get her nowhere. She couldn’t live in this world. She simply could not.
Unpardonable
Error
Number
Five: Never, ever fall in love with a human.

When she rounded the corner, she found Anne in a fit of tears on a bench. Her list was torn into small pieces that littered the ground. Sophia turned to Ashley and raised a brow. He mouthed “temper tantrum” at her and started toward his daughter. But Sophia held up a hand to stop him. He paused, imitated her brow raise, and motioned with his hand for them to continue. But something told Sophia he wouldn’t wait too long to take the situation in hand. His hand probably involved tossing Anne over his shoulder and delivering her to her chambers. To her nurse. That was the last thing the girl needed.

“It’s regrettable that the treasure hunt has ended so abruptly. I had so looked forward to it,” Sophia said absently. Then she turned to walk back down the path the way she’d come. She motioned for Ashley to follow.

“Where are you going?” Anne sobbed out.

Sophia turned back only briefly to say, “I had anticipated a treasure hunt. But all I see is a beastly little girl who’s throwing a fit. I can find better entertainment elsewhere.”

Anne jumped to her feet and screamed at the top of her lungs, her face turning redder than anyone Sophia had ever seen in a temper-fit before. “I can’t find anything on the list!” She stamped her foot so hard it made Sophia want to wince for her.

Sophia looked down at the scattered remains of the list Ashley had given her. He watched, his expression slightly amused while Anne wasn’t looking. Did he think she would be taken down by a little girl? A faerie? Taken down by a mere slip of a human? She’d faced spiders, for God’s sake. Not very likely. “No one can find anything on the list once it has been torn to pieces.” Sophia reached for Ashley’s elbow and slid her arm inside. “Will you escort me back to the house, Your Grace? It appears as though your daughter is bound for embroidery.”

“Absolutely,” he murmured as he turned to walk back toward the house.

“But what about me?” Anne said from behind them.

“Messes are not allowed in my garden. A fact of which you are well aware of, Anne.” He nodded toward the remains. “Clean it up and go find your grandmother.” Then he walked back toward the garden door with Sophia in tow.

“Did I do all right?” he murmured at her, dipping his head only slightly.

“You did beautifully,” she whispered back, afraid she was probably much too happy about the current state of events. “You place too much importance on her attitude. And not enough on the detriment she causes to herself with her tantrums.”

“You speak as though you’ve experience with children, Sophie.”
Sophie, not Sophia.

She had plenty of experience with children. She couldn’t explain it to him. But he was the first person who’d ever made her want to. That was saying something, wasn’t it? “Some,” she said with a shrug. “Now she doesn’t get to hunt for treasure at all.” She nudged him by leaning into him. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been there? Delivered her back to her nurse?”

He thought about it a moment. “Probably. But then she would have gotten my attention, no matter whether it was good or bad. And that was probably her goal all along?”

“Precisely,” Sophia said. “In fact, I bet she’s so awed by your lack of concern over her actions that she’s planning to fix it.”

Just then, Anne raced around them, clutching the pieces in her hand. “I can put it back together,” she said breathlessly, looking more than a little uncertain about her approach.

“Put back together the party?” Ashley asked. “After your tantrum, I highly doubt you can rekindle the spirit with which the party was intended.”

Sophia squeezed his arm. He looked down at her briefly. Then he took a deep breath and said, “But I suppose you can try.”

Lady Anne crossed to the table and began to restore the torn parchment. She pressed it flat with her fingertips. But as she began to put the pieces together, her brow furrowed.

“Should I go and help her?” Ashley murmured.

“No. She should clean up her own messes,” Sophia stated clearly. She firmly believed it. And hoped he saw the value of it. The value of her.

When Anne had them assembled appropriately, she called to her father. “Can you help me find the treasures?”

Since she hadn’t called to Sophia, she didn’t respond. But she nudged Ashley. He approached and peered over his daughter’s shoulder. “Read what it says,” he prompted.

She began hesitantly, whispering the words to herself very quietly. She turned the paper slightly, peering across a torn section. She looked toward the duke. “My eyes are blue.”

“They are,” he affirmed. “Just like mine.” He tweaked her nose. “You look a lot like your mother. But some things you got from me.”

She grinned broadly at him before she dashed off into the garden.

“I wrote a riddle about her eyes,” Ashley explained, before he took a deep breath and faced Sophia. “Thank you,” he said. His blue eyes danced everywhere but on her face. Then his eyes met hers. “For handling my daughter. I don’t know how you did it.”

“I didn’t,” she said. “You did.”

His eyes did that little dance again, looking everywhere but at her. He was adorable when he was feeling unsure.

“What can I do to repay you?”

Sophia tapped her chin and wondered aloud, “What can you do to repay me?” she crooned. “Anything?”

He smiled broadly. “Within reason.”

“Join the party for dinner tonight,” she blurted without even thinking.

He did that eyebrow raise again. “Me?” His hand flattened on his chest. “I do not partake of house-party festivities.”

“Why ever not?”

***

Because doing so would make his mother much too happy. “I just don’t,” he said instead. “No one really expects me to.” He glanced toward where Anne had disappeared. She would return soon, hopefully with a tiny skein of blue embroidery thread in her hand. Her treasure.

Sophia sat down on a bench and smoothed her skirts with her hand. “Then I shall expect you to.”

“Permit me to be blunt, Sophia?” he asked as he sat down beside her. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and rested one arm behind her along the back of the bench. He wanted more than anything for her to lean in to him, to nestle herself in that little spot where his arm met his shoulder. He shook the thoughts away. They would get him nowhere.

“I’d ask no less of you.”

“When hell freezes over, I’ll attend my mother’s house party. And I sincerely doubt that will happen before the week is out.” He reached out a hand to adjust the collar of her dress at her shoulder. Then pulled it back with a grimace. “Apologies,” he murmured.

“For?” she asked, her delicate little brows drawing together.

“I find myself feeling much too familiar toward you at times. I take liberties I shouldn’t.” He lowered his arm from behind her and clutched his hands together in his lap. All the better to keep from touching her.

“One might think the lady would get some say over what liberties you can and cannot take. Did you hear me complain?” She laughed lightly.

“I could get used to having you around, Sophie,” he finally admitted on a heavy sigh.

“That is not a good thing,” she said, finally looking a little chagrined. “For we all know I cannot stay in your life. Here for a moment,” she said, looking around the garden. “Gone the next.”

Something told him it wouldn’t be that easy. She was making a mark in his life. One that wasn’t entirely comfortable. But a mark, none the less. And he liked it. “What if I told you that I want you to stay?” he asked. He wanted to bite the words back as soon as he said them. But he left them hanging there in the air, instead. Like a palpable living, breathing thing.

She reached out her delicate little hand to touch his cheek. “I would have to say no,” she said softly. “Don’t ask me why.”

He leapt to his feet. “I know why,” he said as he began to pace. It was difficult to keep the words from flowing. From pouring out his heart and soul. He hadn’t met a single person that he’d wanted to spill his soul to. Not until her. Not until now.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You think you know. But you have no idea about my own reservations.”

“You don’t want to live with my past in your face any more than I do,” he spit out.

“Your past does not frighten me,” she said, her voice rising.

Anne dashed around the corner, her face lit with joy, holding her prize in the air. Sophia looked as composed as she ever did as she motioned Anne near her to see her treasure. “Can you hold it for me?” he heard Anne ask. “I think I know where the rest of it is.” His daughter dashed back into the garden.

“Ashley,” Sophia began hesitantly.

He held up a hand to stop her. “I’m wishing for things I can’t have.” He hated feeling like this. It was so… foreign. He hadn’t wanted anything in a very long time.

“So am I,” she said quietly.

What the devil did that mean? She could have him. She could have him begging at her feet with a toss of her hair. With a glint of her eye. With absolutely nothing at all, aside from that smile. That beautiful, beautiful smile that made him want to kiss her.

“There are things about me that you don’t know,” she said softly.

He harrumphed. That was the story of his life. No one knew the real him. They knew the dangerous duke. But no one knew what was in his heart. Or that he even had a heart. That he wanted. Good God, he wanted. He wanted her. “I want to learn all about you,” he said.

“That’s just it, Ashley. I’m here on a mission. And when it’s complete, I have to go.”

Again with the mission?

“My kind cannot mix with your kind. Not the way you’d like—the way I’d like as well.”

Was this about wealth? “Are you poor?”

“No.” The truth was there in her eyes. He believed her.

“Illegitimate?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Is there some scandal in your past?”

“Yes, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Neither here nor there? “What does that mean?”

“It means that you and I would never suit,” she stated bluntly. “But I want to help you.”

“I’ll not be your charity case,” he said, realizing immediately that his voice was too sharp when her face fell.

“You’re not charity. You’re my mission. My meaning in life. Don’t you see?”

No. He didn’t see anything.

Just then, Anne ran back into the clearing. “I found it,” she cried. She held out a silver hand mirror. It had been her mother’s at one point and he’d thought she might like to have it. She looked overjoyed.

Sophia bent to look at her treasure, cooing over it as though it was the most bountiful of prizes. He could see their faces close together in the reflection of the mirror. The two of them there with their heads together. They were the prize. They were what he wanted. He realized right then and there. Despite her protests. Despite her affirmation that they would not suit. There was no doubt in his mind that they would suit. He was certain of it. They would suit in all the right ways. And if they didn’t, at least he could say he tried.

He pulled out his watch fob and glanced at it. He had a lot to do.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” Sophia asked with an impish grin.

“I do, actually,” he said as he sat down on the bench. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. She was in his life for a reason. Now he just had to find the stones to take advantage of it.

“It simply wouldn’t do to be late to dinner,” Margaret had warned. But had she listened? No. She’d lingered much too long in the garden with Ashley and Anne. But she’d had such a great time that she couldn’t leave until Anne had found all of her treasures. There were only three, one of which was the mirror. Sophia would bet it held some significance aside from the benefit one received by looking into it.

Anne had also found the blue thread, which matched her father’s eyes perfectly. And she’d also found a small pincushion with sewing needles. She hadn’t been overjoyed with the last, but Sophia had a feeling that would change with her father’s attention.

“Are you enjoying the house party, my dear?” a big booming voice said from beside her. Sophia glanced to her left, only to find a hunchbacked old woman who held an ear trumpet up to her left ear. She leaned closer to Sophia as she waited for her to speak. “Speak up, child,” she said, her eyebrows drawing together when Sophia’s tongue refused to work.

Should she yell back at her? Should she speak quietly and hope she could hear? Sophia glanced toward her grandmother, but she was at the opposite end of the dinner table.

A voice boomed from the other side of the table. “Cat’s got her tongue, Grandmother,” the man said loudly. “First time I’ve ever seen you speechless, Miss Thorne,” Lord Phineas said, raising his glass in a mocking toast. “I find I quite like it,” he said more quietly. But not quietly enough that everyone at the table couldn’t hear him. Snickers bounced from one side of the table to the other.

“Don’t get used to it, my lord,” she said sweetly as she raised her glass to him and took a sip. Then she turned to the woman who’d originally spoken and said, “I’m enjoying the party very much. Thank you for asking.”

“Eh?” the old lady grunted, leaning toward Sophia.

But Lord Phineas leaned toward his grandmother and said, “She said thanks for asking, Grandmother.”

The lady held out her glass. “You’ve a flask, young man? Why didn’t you say so?” She shook her empty glass at him. “I could use a nip.”

Lord Phineas reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small silver flask, glanced down the table toward where his mother sat, and poured some amber liquid into his grandmother’s glass. “Bottoms up, Grams,” he said with a chuckle.

Sophia leaned toward him. “Should she be drinking?” she hissed.

He shrugged. “The more she drinks, the better she hears,” he said beneath his breath. “She swears a little more, too, but people are used to that. It’s better than the yelling.”

Sophia bit back a snort. He motioned toward his pocket and arched a brow. “Would you like a nip?”

She definitely needed her wits about her. “No, thank you. I believe I’ll pass this time.”

“Afraid you’ll lose your inhibitions?” he taunted.

“You’re assuming I have some?” she retorted.

“I try not to assume anything where you’re concerned, Miss Thorne,” he said.

“Much safer that way,” she tossed back. This verbal sparring was jarring to the soul. She stiffened her spine and narrowed her eyes at him. “I do wish you’d tell me how you feel about me, my lord. All this fawning you do when you’re in my presence could give me the false impression that you like me.”

He grinned. Then he raised that big booming voice again and addressed his grandmother. “Have you met Miss Thorne, Grams?”

She raised the trumpet back up to her ear. “What are you mourning, dear boy?” she asked of Lord Phineas. “Not that mistress again?” She said the last very loudly, and a low hum began around the table. “She had horse teeth and a big nose. And couldn’t keep her legs closed if you paid her.”

“Mother,” the dowager duchess hissed from the end of the table.

“I knew her mother, if you must know. And her skirt was just as light.” She took a sip of the drink he’d sneaked to her. Something told Sophia he would regret that. “Find another one to flip on her back and you’ll be over her in no time.”

“Grams,” Lord Phineas said. “Must you be so loud?” His face was a bit flushed and he looked as though he’d had a nip too many, even though Sophia hadn’t seen him take a single drink.

“You’re the one who was talking about being in mourning. If you don’t want your dirty laundry to be aired, don’t hang it on the line.” She leaned toward Sophia. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Sophia,” she croaked. She was about to add her surname, but Sophia was afraid it would spark more conversations about the lightskirt.

The dowager duchess motioned toward Sophia with her thumb. “Why can’t you find a lady of quality like this one? Settle down and have a family. Between you and Robin, you’d think we’d have a house full of great-grandchildren by now.” She narrowed her eyes at Lord Phineas. “The illegitimate ones don’t count.”

Lord Phineas wiggled uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t have any children, Grams. I promise.”

“You should get to work on that. I’d like to see at least one boy child before I gasp my last breath. Girls are fine, but I prefer the ones with dangly parts.”

Sophia choked. She couldn’t help it. And Lord Phineas looked pleased by her reaction. “Something wrong, Miss Thorne?” he asked, his voice as sweet as syrup and just as smooth.

“Nothing,” she gasped as she reached for her water glass.

“Mother, would you please temper your comments?” the dowager duchess barked from her seat.

The old lady waved her fork wildly in the air. “You act like you don’t want to hear about dangly parts. Everyone’s got them. Or at least a receptacle for them.” She cackled loudly on the last.

Lady Hammersmith jumped to her feet, her lips pursed like she’d been sucking on a sour grape. She tossed her napkin onto her plate. “I don’t have to listen to such poor conversation.” She tapped her husband’s arm. “Come along, Harold,” she said. “Receptacles, indeed. I’ve never heard of such a vulgar thing.”

“She’s never heard of it?” the old lady cackled. “That must be why her husband always looks so irritated.” She laughed so loudly that it made Sophia want to laugh with her. She covered her mouth, instead. The dowager duchess buried her face in her hands and groaned.

“I’m certain you’re right,” Lord Phineas said with a smirk.

“Eh?” the woman asked, raising her trumpet again.

“Never mind,” the duke’s brother said loudly. “We can discuss it later, Grams.”

“I count on you to tell me all the details,” she said with a wink toward his lordship.

“No problem, Grams.” Lord Phineas winked back at her. If Sophia didn’t know better, she might even like him.

Ashley’s grandmother looked toward the head of the table where Ashley’s seat sat open. “Where is that other grandson of mine?” she asked absently.

Lord Phineas arched a brow at Sophia. Damn his hide. “He’s absent from the festivities, Grams. Like usual.”

“That boy needs to get his head out of his arse and get back to business.”

“His business acumen is not in question.” Thank goodness Lord Phineas took up for him, because Sophia felt the need to do so.

His grandmother smacked the table. “The business of marriage and raising an heir.”

Just then, a large voice boomed over all the others. Sophia nearly jumped from her skin when she heard it. “Do you normally speak of dangly parts and my need to breed over dinner?” the voice called from the doorway.

Sophia spun to face Ashley, who leaned casually in the door frame, his arms folded across his chest. He looked amazing. He was splendidly turned out in his evening clothes. An emerald winked from the center of his cravat. He gave a tug to his jacket and started across the room.

“Robin, what are you doing here?” his mother asked as everyone jumped to their feet. Sophia rose along with them, although she was finding it difficult to draw in a deep breath. A lock of hair fell across his forehead when his eyebrows drew together, and she wanted to brush it back for him. What a ridiculous thought.

“I’m having dinner,” he said absently. Ashley snapped his fingers and held out his hand. It was almost immediately populated with a goblet of wine. He raised it high in the air. He cleared his throat, inhaled deeply, and said, “I’d like to make a toast.”

Sophia reached for her glass and waited anxiously.

“Please do, Robin,” his mother sputtered as she motioned for everyone to pick up their glasses.

“Here’s to hell freezing over,” he said with a straight face. Then he looked directly at Sophia and winked.

***

“Robin, darling,” Ashley’s mother crooned. “So, happy you were able to join us,” she said as he motioned for everyone at the table to sit. They all dropped into their chairs like stones. His mother turned to the group. “Robin has been under the weather, you see,” she started.

He had? No, he hadn’t.

“I explained to everyone when they arrived that you were not feeling well, and that’s why you were not joining us.” She blinked her icy eyes at him.

“It’s quite unfortunate that you lied to everyone, Mother,” he said, his voice crisp even to his own ears. But he refused to compound her lies with any of his own. Nor would he ever. “I would have thought better of you. You could have simply told everyone how much I abhor crowded dinner tables and overstuffed sitting rooms.” He clucked his tongue at her. “Would have been much simpler. And it’s not as though I haven’t taken blame for things before.”

His mother’s face drained of color.

“I hope you’re all enjoying your stay,” he said to the table.

Anxious, worried gazes met his. Perhaps he’d been a little too candid.

“Nice to see you, Robin,” Finn said loudly. “And so nice of you to bring all your parts so they can talk about yours instead of mine.” His brother raised his glass at Ashley, then took a healthy swallow.

“I’ve been talked about for years,” Ashley said with a shrug. “It will be nothing new.”

Sophia coughed delicately into her fist and said, “May tonight be a night of new beginnings.”

“To new beginnings,” chimed the rest of the table.